By Sam Elliott
Both the Zionsville Town Council and the town’s Park Board have approved funds for a new home for the Zion Nature Center — a structure that, if need be, could serve as a temporary home for town hall.
But until it’s ready — construction will begin by the spring — Zionsville has a couple of options available in case of an emergency requiring staff to move out of the current town hall in a 53-year-old former church building at 1100 W Oak St. It has housed Zionsville’s administration since 2003 and has presented problems for the town for years.
“I got on the council five years ago, and as soon as I got on the council I heard … about how that building was kind of crumbling and was a constant maintenance,” Zionsville Mayor Jeff Papa said. “Even if you had just built it yesterday, it’s not very efficiently laid out. It’s not an easy space to use, it’s not an easy space to heat or cool. It’s just not arranged very well.”
Two winters ago, the town was almost forced out of the building as it was nearly condemned following major issues with the boilers that left town hall without heat.
“The fire department’s inspectors had said, ‘If you can’t get this addressed, we’re going to have to close the building down,’” Papa said. “The fire chief worked on it and found a way to get that working, but if it goes down for real that’s a very, very, large, major expense that we’d be putting into a building that probably doesn’t have a lot of life left in it.”
With unpredictable winter weather approaching and the new nature center not an option for many months, other temporary measures would need to be taken in the event problems resurface and town hall is condemned in the immediate future.
“For the fire department personnel and probably for a handful of other people, we could put them at the three fire stations,” Papa said. “In a real emergency, you could put a handful of people over at the municipal [services]building, but not for very long. There isn’t much extra space there. There are a few small commercial spaces that are available we could look at, too, but that’s still going to take time to put together.”
Another option considered by the town was rental workstation “pods” potentially housed in the high school parking lot, but costs with that plan could reach as high as $400,000 while still presenting logistical problems with the school, making it nobody’s first choice.
“As soon as we could put [the new nature center together], that would probably be the best option,” Papa said. “But in the immediate short run you’re going to have to come up with something else.”
The mayor is hopeful major problems with the current town hall won’t arise — “it’s not going to fall over tomorrow,” he said — and Zionsville staff can stay there until the new nature center and, ultimately, a new town hall is built.
